Uber, Lyft in spotlight as travel ban roils riders and drivers

A new "AMP" device is seen in a Lyft car in San Francisco, Calif., on January 19, 2017.

A new "AMP" device is seen in a Lyft car in San Francisco, Calif.,...

Chissy Nkemere isn’t usually one for boycotts.

She just doesn’t think they make much of a difference. Unless there are enough people to hit the pocketbook of a company in a noticeable way, she said, one or two people taking their business elsewhere probably won’t mean much.

But on Saturday, after protesting for hours at a rally in New York City, she decided to join a trending boycott of one of the biggest tech companies in the world. She deleted her Uber account.

Nkemere, 26, was one of countless customers who opted out of the ride-hailing app in the midst of national outcry over President Trump’s order barring admittance of refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Social media lit up with the hashtag #DeleteUber as thousands of people and big-name celebrities shared they were turning to Lyft, which in turn pledged to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a nation already polarized by politics, geography and identity, Lyft and Uber seemed to fall into neat roles defined by customers’ perceptions as much as their own politics and policies. But it may not be that simple.

Though backlash to Uber has been simmering since CEO Travis Kalanick joined 19 corporate leaders on an economic advisory council to the Trump administration, the hashtag calling for mass deletion of the app began circulating Saturday, as New York taxi drivers at John F. Kennedy International Airport went on a brief strike in opposition to the president’s immigration ban.

Uber continued to operate during the hour-long strike — as did Lyft — but Uber drew the wrath of customers when it tweeted out that it had suspended surge pricing, leading critics to say it was crossing a picket line for profit, although Uber tweeted that it had not “meant to break the strike.” Lyft, meanwhile, did not eliminate its surge pricing.

But the damage was done.

On Facebook and Twitter over the weekend and into Monday, users posted images of messages sent to Uber while deactivating their account. Some posted about alternatives, citing Lyft as well as Juno, a newer ride-hailing service, and extolling the benefits of hailing a cab the old fashioned way.

Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the 19,000-member New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said she didn’t notice it, though, until she went home and opened Twitter.

“That was when we discovered what Uber had done and the outrage people felt,” Desai said, adding that people’s defense of the taxi drivers “was so moving.”

Uber, meanwhile, decried Trump’s ban as unjust, pledged $3 million to a nonprofit Driver Legal Defense Fund to provide lawyers for affected drivers, and offered to compensate drivers stranded in the affected countries during the three-month ban. Kalanick said in a Facebook post that he would speak up against the ban at the economic advisory group’s first meeting on Friday.

Lyft may not remain unscathed either. Backlash to the anti-Uber hashtag emerged in a similar #DeleteLyft movement that included Trump supporters celebrating Kalanick’s advisory role to the president and critics of both apps who pointed out that Trump advisers Peter Thiel and Carl Icahn are both major investors in Lyft.

“I’m surprised there isn’t more discussion of that,” said Edward Walker, a sociology professor at UCLA. “At some point there may be a call for Lyft to return those investments — and they may not be in a position to do so.”

It’s certainly not the first time Uber has had a tin-eared reaction to something, nor the first time that there’s been a boycott campaign. Uber is now listed on GrabYourWallet, a movement asking consumers to boycott companies with Trump ties.

But for users like Nkemere, this weekend was the last straw.

“I have had a problem with Uber for so long because of their issues with women’s safety and sexual violence, so when I found out (Kalanick) was working to support the president, that was it,” she said. “It’s not that I think Uber is going to go down or their stock price is going to drop a million points, but when people speak out and come together change is made, progress is made.” (Uber is privately held, with its investors valuing it at $70 billion.)

SensorTower, which tracks app numbers, said Lyft’s iPhone downloads for Saturday and Sunday were up 78 percent from the previous weekend. Uber’s downloads, meanwhile, seemed “more or less unaffected,” said spokesman Randy Nelson. Those statistics only capture users who download an app, not those who delete it from their phones or deactivate their accounts.

Driver advocates say that Lyft and Uber could do more on an ongoing basis for the immigrants and refugees who make their living by driving.

“Uber, Lyft and the taxi industry profit from the labor of refugees and immigrants,” said Veena Dubal, an associate professor of law at UC Hastings studying ride-service drivers. “Yet they purposefully maintain them in a space where they are not able to enjoy the benefits of real employment.”

For Tony, 60, an Uber driver from Iran, the legal fund could be good news if it broadens its scope.

“One of my problems is I cannot make so much money to pay for an application for citizenship,” said Tony, who puts in about 50 hours behind the wheel in San Francisco some weeks. He asked to withhold his last name, as he fears for his 93-year-old mother and his late brother’s son and daughter, who are in Iran.